Today, in the US, is Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Almost 52 years on from his landmark speech, over half a century, his words still ring out:
“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
…
“There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality… …We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Much has changed, and much has not. By the end of next year, 1% of the world’s population will control 50% of the world’s wealth. Inequality, in all of its forms, carries a cost. The world is not fair. That does not mean that we should not demand that it is fairer, by what we buy, by who we vote for, by what we do.
